{"id":1810,"date":"2011-03-05T12:15:49","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T17:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=1810"},"modified":"2011-03-05T12:15:49","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T17:15:49","slug":"where-are-the-gps-enabled-digital-cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/05\/where-are-the-gps-enabled-digital-cameras\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 Where are the GPS enabled digital cameras?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jason<\/a><\/p>\n

iPhoto ’09 introduced support for geotagged photos and a new view option called Places. It allows you to view all of your photos in map-view down to the meter and you can snap photos all day with a GPS enabled device that geo-tags photos and that data can be read by iPhoto. Flickr supports displaying geo data as well and I spend extra time manually adding the location to each shot. For people who take photos with the iPhone, your photos are automatically geo tagged unless you disable it so this article isn’t for you but there are still a few people left in the world who think the iPhone is terrible compared to real cameras and we miss out on the geo-tagging fun. You can manually add data to your photos in iPhoto later but it takes a very long time and most casual users won’t bother. The Places feature is also in Apple’s Aperture software as well as a few other photo tools like Picasa.<\/p>\n

iPhoto ’09 came out in January of 2009 which is over 2 years ago. At the time, Apple featured the Nikon P6000 camera as a good point & shoot that had GPS built in. SLR owners with hot-shoe capability can buy very pricey ($200+) modules from Canon & Nikon that adds geo-tagging but this ads weight to your body when most photographers are trying to travel as light as possible. I just bought 4 cameras and they’re all cutting edge except for the Canon AE-1 that was built in the 70s. Let’s focus on the Olympus PEN E-PL2 and Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5. The Olympus was $800 for the body and the Panasonic was $400. Neither of these cameras include GPS modules. In fact, a search of Amazon only shows 40 cameras that have built in GPS and really it’s only 24 cameras as some of these just come in\u00a0different\u00a0colors. Photographers know that if a camera comes in 5 colors, you’re probably not looking at a professional camera. Only two of the GPS enabled cameras are what I’d consider professional. It seems that Nikon still sells the P6000 and the Leica V-LUX 20 retails for nearly $800 and has built in GPS.<\/p>\n

There are a few professionally priced cameras at $400 on the list of models that have GPS built in but the price is usually because of GPS and there are a few models on there that are water proof or have a wide angle lens but the capabilities of these cameras aren’t professional grade.<\/p>\n

So I ask, where are the GPS enabled digital cameras? We have 24 models currently shipping (and a few that are nearly 2 years old) and it seems like no cameras have come out with GPS in the last few months that are cutting edge beyond the over-priced Leica. There is the potential for USB GPS add-ons for some Panasonic and Fuji cameras but you’re paying quite a bit of money just for the module when it should have been built in.<\/p>\n

Am I forever destined to manually geo-tag all of my photos or am I forced to simply shoot everything with an iPhone?<\/p>\n

It’s frustrating that every major photo management suite supports geo-tagging but camera manufacturers aren’t behind it as a technology they see as necessary.<\/p>\n

You can either go the add-on route<\/a><\/p>\n

Or get an Eye-Fi Card<\/a><\/p>\n

Both are an added cost when it could just be shipping with every camera available today. Oh and before you go out and drop money on the Eye-Fi card, keep in mind, it doesn’t have true GPS. Eye-Fi works by looking for open WiFi networks in the area and then connecting to them. Once connected, it uses SkyHook wireless to find out the approximate location of that WiFi base station using traceroute and IP tracing so you won’t get an accurate GPS reading each time as some ISPs are 100 miles away so you could be in Santa Monica and get a reading that says West Hollywood. Then, Eye-Fi writes that geo-data to every photo you take and you have to keep connecting to open wifi networks every 15 minutes to keep getting geo-data tagged photos. It’s not really a good solution. For the effort, I’d rather just buy a module that hangs from the camera.<\/p>\n

It’s disappointing that GPS enabled cameras aren’t common yet. I’m going to scrap this technology as “never gonna happen” if the next round of Canon & Nikon SLRs don’t have GPS built in. Even if it is a battery hog, you should be able to enable or disable it at will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"iPhoto ’09 introduced support for geotagged photos and a new view option called Places. It allows you to…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-photography","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-tc","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4530,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/03\/24\/thoughts-on-photos-for-mac-and-icloud-photo-library\/","url_meta":{"origin":1810,"position":0},"title":"Thoughts on Photos for Mac and iCloud Photo Library","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I believe this product is only available as a Public Beta for which I am a tester. 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